Month: September 2008

Categories
Music Music Features

Overton Park Shell Re-Opens Tonight

Dormant since 2004 and in disrepair for many years before that, the once-proud Overton Park Shell makes a comeback this week. Rechristened the Levitt Shell — after the nonprofit, Los Angeles-based Mortimer-Levitt Foundation, which has helped finance the venue’s renovation as part of a bid to rehab classic band shells across the country — the venue that hosted Elvis Presley’s first paid concert, classic hippie-era blues and folk festivals, and other memorable events is being reborn as a family-oriented venue.

The Levitt Shell debuts on tonight when Amy LaVere performs to kick off a five-week, 25-concert fall season.

For more on the $1.3 million dollar rehab of the Shell and what’s in store for the historic venue, read this week’s feature story.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Frist Seconds Palin on Switching “Maverick” McCain’s Venue

CREDIT: jb

Response to Wednesday night’s speech by GOP
vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin drew unanimous raves from members of the
Tennessee delegation, both on the floor of the arena when the speech was being
given and afterward.

At Wednesday’s morning-after breakfast of the Tennessee
delegation, 7th District congresswoman Marsha Blackburn said Palin’s
address would help to make this “the reddest of red-state years in Tennessee”
and vowed to do what she could to defend Palin against expected attacks from
“the liberal media.”

Tennessee Republican chair Robin Smith saw Palin as “a
Ronald Reagan in heels,” and praised Palin for expressing “our values – he
values of family, God, faith.”

Speakers at the breakfast were also looking forward to
Thursday night’s acceptance-speech finale by John McCain, now the Republican
presidential nominee after Wednesday night’s official roll call.

In his remarks, 3rd District congressman Zach
Wamp focused on the unprecedented journey, “the most dramatic in our history,”
of McCain from his cloistered one-room cell at the “Hanoi Hilton” in Vietnam to
the White House.

And former U.S. Senator Bill Frist put a positive spin on
the non-conformist aspects of “the maverick, the radical John McCain.” Said the
former Senate majority leader: “I had to put up with John McCain every single
day, and it was hard.” But he professed himself to be in agreement with Palin’s
advocacy in her speech of “tak[ing} the maverick out of the Senate and putting
him int he White House.”

Frist also told some extended anecdotes about Democratic
presidential nominee Barack Obama’s tenure in the Senate, which overlapped with
his own. Frist characterized Obama a something of a self-aggrandizer more
interested in logrolling interplay with the media than with policy matters as
such.

As an ironic counterpoint to that, Frist predicted that
this year’s presidential contest between McCain and Democrat Barack Obama will
based more on personality than on issues.

–Jackson Baker

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: The Wilderness Next Door

CREDIT: Bruce VanWyngarden

“Don’t tell anybody about this.”

The speaker was Memphian John Gary, and the “this” he was wanting me to keep secret is the Mississippi River. Yes, I know, you’re Memphians. You know about the Mississippi. It’s that wide, brown, roiling chunk of dangerous, dirty water that flows past downtown and sometimes floods Arkansas.

But the odds are you don’t know about the Mississippi River that Gary, my family, and I visited — lived on — last weekend. This Mississippi has sandbars bigger than Caribbean beaches, “blue holes” where the swimming is splendid, wood storks, great blue herons, petrified mud that comes in fantastic shapes, and glorious peace and quiet.

It’s the wilderness next door — our Rocky Mountains, our ocean, our natural treasure. Less than five miles above Memphis, we watched a bald eagle scout for fish in a shallow backwater as white egrets circled over his head. We walked a vast sandbar at sunrise and marveled at the fresh trails of coyote, deer, large birds, small rodents, and even the S-shaped track of a snake.

And here’s the other big news: You can float blissfully along in the Mississippi in a life-jacket, and you won’t get sucked down by giant whirlpools or get eaten by a huge alligator gar.

We were led by John Ruskey of Clarksdale, Mississippi, who runs a guide service called Quapaw Canoe Company that specializes in Mississippi River floats. We rode in — and occasionally paddled — a 23-foot hand-built canoe modeled after those built by the French Voyageurs 300 years ago. At 450 pounds empty, it was so stable you could dive off the side or the bow and barely rock the boat.

Ruskey is a good man, dedicated to making a change in his community. He has a contingent of youngsters he trains as apprentice river guides — the Mighty Quapaws. The two who accompanied us made lunch and dinner, did the heavy lifting and paddling, and provided lots of adolescent high jinks. They are much the better thanks to this program.

We camped on an island beach, ate catfish and steak and fresh vegetables, then sat around a bonfire passing a bottle and swapping lies until we ran out of both.

We discovered a new world just beyond our city limits. You should go experience it sometime. Just don’t tell anybody.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

What Did You Think of McCain’s Speech?

poll by twiigs.com

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

MAD AS HELL: Palin — It Rhymes With ‘Rich’

Wednesday was quite a
night at the Republican National Convention, as the vice-presidential nominee
finally made her appearance. After three days of sequestered practice, Sarah
Palin, governor of Alaska and goddess of the right wing, pounced up to the
podium and started throwing punches at Barack Obama. That’s
their Sarah — she can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let
Todd forget he’s a man — ’cause she’s
a woman, W-O-M-A-N!

The base of the party,
the Christian conservatives went wild. The convention hall ate up her
vitriolic comments with spoons. Since then, the media has been lauding the
governor for her masterful acceptance speech. Clearly, she is capable and
zesty when it comes to using the teleprompter. One thing was evident
throughout the entire speech, however. Mrs. Palin, a self-described pitbull
in lipstick, was on a mission from God and her Presidential candidate John
McCain, to resurrect America’s
Culture Wars.

”
BAM!!” Take that, Barack Obama and
all you uppity community organizers who don’t
know jack about how to be hardworking real Americans like those of us
who live in small towns raising our huge families of home-schooled kids that
are taken to churches to learn Christian values. “POW!!”
To all you left wing, East Coast media pundits who think your Ivy League
Education makes you so high and mighty — You got it all wrong about John
McCain and you’ll get it wrong again.
“BANG!”
To you secular humanist environmentalists who look down your un-American noses
at us God-fearing, gun-owning patriots who support our troops and love our
country. Shame on you for not waving more flags and hunting more animals!

Dang, by the time this
chick was finished, I didn’t know if
I had just been lectured by the president of the Harper Valley P.T.A. or had
witnessed Caribou Barbie Super Girl! avenging God and Country!

One thing was certain,
however, Saracuda had been sent by John McCain and the Republicans on high to
pour some hot gas on those smoldering Republican fires: abortion, gun
politics, separation of church and state, privacy, homosexuality, and
censorship. Knowing the disaster that the U.S. has become in the last eight
years of Republican governance, and what a loser it would be to bring up
something as reality based as facts, it was time to come around to what really
works — that good, old GOP tried and
true: divide and conquer.

Pitting believers
against non-believers, small-towners against urbanites, pro-choicers against
pro-lifers, and liberals against conservatives could guarantee another eight
years of Republican rule. Sarah Palin was Karl Rove in pearls. Newt Gingrich
was spotted in the crowd wearing a sick grin of satisfaction on his face.

Obviously, the names of
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney never came up. And nary a word was ever
mentioned of the economy they decimated, the treasury they plundered, the
10-trillion-dollar national debt they ran up, and the war profiteering and
complete privatization of America’s
military they conducted by using contractors such as Blackwater and
Halliburton.

There was no mention of
all the lives lost in the illegal and perpetual war in Iraq. When it came to
talking about war, what we heard from Sarah Palin was that her oldest son,
Track, was getting ready to go to Iraq — on
September 11th, no less — with
the clear implication that it was so noble because the war in Iraq still had
something to do with actual events that happened on September 11, 2001.

With an oozing contempt
and obvious delight in trashing Obama, Mrs. Palin forgot to mention our surging
unemployment rate, crumbling infrastructure and declining public schools, and
the 10 million children without health care. The subject of skyrocketing
inflation on food and fuel also conveniently slipped her mind.

After listening for a
half hour to the sarcastic, shrieking, sanctimony of a woman who is stubbornly
resolved to splitting this broken and fragile country even further than The
Decider, all I could say was, “Sarah
Palin is one crazy, dangerous —–.” In the immortal words of Babs Bush, it rhymes with rich.

Categories
News

Vance Lauderdale Likes Bowling For Health

For reasons that I can’t explain, two indoor sports in particular always used the best artwork to promote their virtues. I’m talking roller-skating and bowling. Roller-skating rinks across the country cranked out the most amazing decals, neon signs, and other advertising graphics, and let’s face it, few sports produced as many cool shirts as bowling …

Read Memphis magazine’s resident eccentric Vance Lauderdale’s latest blog entry.

Categories
News The Fly-By

A Place Called Hope

Hope Presbyterian Church never expected to end up on national news program 20/20.

When Craig Leake, a filmmaker from the University of Memphis, asked program directors at Cordova’s Hope Presbyterian to participate in a documentary on Memphis’ infant mortality crisis, they thought the film would be shown around town.

“We thought it would be something that he would do locally,” says Oasis of Hope executive director Terry Hoff. “We’re protective of our youth and want to make sure they’re not put in any compromising situation. He dealt with it with such integrity that we had a good feeling about it.”

Along with colleague David Appleby, Leake created a documentary called Babyland about Shelby County’s sky-high infant mortality rate.

With a baby dying every 43 hours, Memphis has a higher infant mortality rate than any other major U.S. city. The documentary featured the Med’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the Health Department’s “Babyland” cemetery, and Andreah “Precious” Simpson, a young, pregnant teenager in one of Hope Presbyterian’s mentoring programs.

Almost six years ago, Hope Presbyterian opened its Oasis of Hope, a mission in North Memphis near Danny Thomas and Chelsea Avenue.

The Cordova-based church had partnered with other groups to do Easter egg hunts, vacation Bible school, and Thanksgiving events in the inner city, but church leaders didn’t feel the programs had a permanent impact.

“It was kind of like a shotgun approach,” Hoff says. “We met with city leaders and asked, ‘How do we do urban ministry with more depth? How can we build deeper relationships?'”

The church already had a relationship with Caldwell Elementary, so moving into the surrounding North Memphis community made sense. Since then, the church has sought to develop young Christian leaders and empower neighborhood adults through a number of programs, including after-school tutoring and mentoring, recreational sports, a daily senior-citizens program, and a free tax-filing service.

The church also has helped with small business loans and assisted the local community development corporation with new affordable housing.

“We’ve rehabbed a few houses in the community,” Hoff says. “We built another. Quality affordable housing is a real need.”

Oasis of Hope’s ministry for young mothers came about as a natural extension of the mission’s youth mentoring program. The church works with mentors to help young mothers get prenatal care and to help them after babies are born.

“Our ministry is the kind that if there’s a significant need and we can make a difference, then we’re going to do whatever we can,” Hoff says. “One of those situations is definitely expecting young mothers.”

The documentary aired on ABC’s 20/20 recently, and so far national response to Hope Presbyterian has been substantial.

“We have received phone calls and e-mails from across the country: people saying they’re praying for us, giving us words of encouragement, saying, ‘I have some baby supplies I’d like to send,'” Hoff says. “It’s been a very humbling, overwhelming experience.”

But the city needs more than just Hope. The infant mortality rate is a symptom of a larger poverty crisis.

Data by Richard Janikowski and Phyllis Betts, referenced in this space just a few weeks ago and presented to the City Council last month, shows how babies with low birth weights are distributed across the city.

The distribution aligns closely with births to mothers who don’t have a high school diploma and to teen mothers. As Janikowski has pointed out, young, under-educated mothers are also more likely to be poor.

And the number of people living in poverty in Shelby County is growing. Just last week, the U.S. Census bureau released 2007 data showing that 179,000 people — or one in every five Shelby Countians — live below the poverty line.

That number is up 2 percent from 2005.

As for Hope Presbyterian Church, they wanted to make a big difference in a small pocket of Memphis.

“We will continue to serve and learn with our neighbors and friends,” Hoff says. “Hopefully, day by day and year by year, we’ll make a significant impact on the community.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

What They Said

About “Cohen, ‘Funniest Man in Politics,’ Says GOP Forever Out of Luck in Shelby County, Seriously,” by Jackson Baker:

“It sure looks to me like the Shelby GOP is circling the wagons, declaring SD-9 to be the Alamo and making Kemp Conrad their Davy Crockett.” — leftwingcracker

“I served with Davy Crockett: I knew Davy Crockett; Davy Crockett was a friend of mine. Kemp Conrad is no Davy Crockett.” — tomguleff

About “To Drink or Not To Drink,” concerning the drinking age on college campuses, by Bianca Phillips:

“If under-21s can get ‘fitshaced’ on campus … they typically do not need to drive to unsupervised location keg parties as they do these days.” — wintermute.

About “Hillary Watch in Denver,”
by Chris Davis:

“If you interview an infinite number of monkeys, sooner or later one of them will say what you want for your news story.” — fancycwabs

Comment of the Week:

About “Title Talk,” where Frank Murtaugh discussed the chances of the University of Memphis winning the conference championship:

“The Tigers can ‘talk’ all they want, but they won’t win a title until they move from a second-tier conference to a third-tier one. Sunbelt maybe? Maybe not. They have trouble with Arkansas State and Middle Tennessee. Toilet Bowl, here they come again.” — squeeznoutsparks

To share your thoughts, comments, concerns, and — maybe — get published, visit memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Counter Offer

Ciao Bella, in the former Lulu Grille location on Erin Drive, is now offering a late-night menu on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, when it stays open until midnight. Sirloin sliders, Spiro’s gyro, gourmet mini pizzas, and the “Abe Froman,” a spicy Italian sausage served on a French roll, are a few of the menu items, all of which are priced under $9.

Ciao Bella is an Italian and Greek family affair. Judd Tashie, the restaurant’s co-owner, says Mediterranean best describes his family’s roots and style. This heritage will be reflected again in Tashie’s latest venture. With his dad, Paul, and cousin, David, Tashie is planning to open Carmela’s Little Italy in the space adjacent to Ciao Bella in October.

Carmela’s, a specialty food store and deli named after Tashie’s grandmother, will carry Greek and Italian items, such as olive oil, pasta, cheeses, and meats. The store also will offer a variety of prepared foods as well as simple lunch fare and sandwiches from the deli.

“We want to be a gourmet store but also offer our customers Ciao Bella food that they can take home and heat up for a family dinner,” Tashie explains.

For more information about Carmela’s Little Italy, visit ciaobellamemphis.com.

Ciao Bella, 565 Erin Drive (205-2500)

Staff Outings

Paul Gerald, a former Flyer staffer who now calls Portland, Oregon, his home, believes the essence of a place can be discovered if you know “how and where it eats breakfast.”

When Gerald regularly wrote travel features for the Flyer, he often wrote about the meals he ate to tell stories about the places and people he visited.

“I like breakfast, and that’s why some of those stories center around that first meal of the day,” Gerald says.

When eating breakfast at Beaterville Café in Portland one morning, Gerald realized he hadn’t investigated his new home yet. And because the options in Portland are endless, Gerald decided to write a book rather than a newspaper article.

For the project, Gerald ate about 200 breakfasts at more than 100 restaurants. His self-published book, Breakfast in Bridgetown (Bacon and Eggs Press), will be available this week from his website, breakfastinbridgetown.com. The book includes descriptions, anecdotes, and the basic facts — addresses, phone numbers, hours of operation — of 95 breakfast places in Portland.

“I’m not a food critic, and I don’t rate the restaurants in my book,” Gerald says. “There are two types of breakfasts as far as I’m concerned: memorable and non-memorable.” (He did, for the record, find out which coffee each restaurant serves, an important stat for Portlanders.)

breakfastinbridgetown.com

Other Flyer folks revealing their foodie stripes: freelance photographer Justin Fox Burks, staff writer Bianca Phillips, and wine columnist Michael Hughes.

Chubby Vegetarian is an online record of Burks’ artful vegetarian dishes. The site includes photographs and recipes as well as Burks’ reflections on tertiary topics, such as the perfect pizza, shopping at Winchester Farmers Market, and what to do with stolen apples. If you are a vegetarian who needs new meal ideas or a newbie who doesn’t know how to cook without meat, check out Burks’ blog for inspiration.

chubbyvegetarian.blogspot.com

In her blog Vegan Crunk, Bianca Phillips shares the good and the not-so-good sides of being a vegan, plus vegan-centric recipes and links. Growing up in the Mississippi Delta on “cornbread, butter beans, collard greens, and Paula Deen,” Phillips is on a mission of veganizing Southern and soul-food staples and eventually collecting her recipes in a cookbook. Reading her blog, you’ll discover that vegan fare can be exciting and delicious. Who can resist caramelized fig spread on an “everything” bagel?

vegancrunk.blogspot.com

In Midtown Stomp, Michael Hughes muses about the aroma of dried apricots and pineapples, peaches and white pepper, simple foods, local wine lists, and wine and food pairings. Hughes also reveals the treasures of his “cellar” and explores food and wine during dinners at home and at local and out-of-town restaurants. Don’t know what wine to have with dinner tonight? Check out this site, and you’ll be sure to come away with a few ideas.

midtownstomp.blogspot.com

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Beauty in a Bottle

Right now is one of the most exciting times of the year for cork dorks. The holiest of Italian wines — Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello di Montalcino — are being released. These are some of the most sought-after wines in the world and are quickly snatched up, coveted, and salivated over.

Yes, they are expensive, but there is absolutely nothing that can match experiencing an aged Brunello or Barolo — and I do mean “experience.” Describing the feeling a beautifully aged version of these wines gives goes far beyond flavor, aroma, or texture. It can affect your entire body, especially when served alongside a meal to enhance it.

What makes the wines so special is that they can only be crafted in certain parts of Italy. The grapes at the heart of these wines — Nebbiolo for Barolo and Barbaresco, Sangiovese Grosso for Brunello di Montalcino — have been planted elsewhere in the world, and they can produce good wine, but they are rarely, if ever, exhilarating to taste. Sometimes a grape doesn’t want to leave its birthplace, and this is one of those instances.

While most Barolos, Barbarescos, and Brunellos can be enjoyed now (if you are a fan of big, rich, full-bodied, and darkly tannic wines), patience is rewarded with real pleasure. These wines are built for aging and don’t truly express themselves and all their beauty until most are at least 10 years old. The current vintage for Barolo is 2004, and the current vintage for Brunello is 2003, so just a little bit of waiting is required.

These wines are released only after fanatical selection processes. Only the best barrels go into Brunello di Montalcino, for example, and whatever isn’t up to the strictest of standards is set aside to be bottled as Rosso di Montalcino, a very good quality wine that is more approachable in its youth. That’s another beautiful thing about this time of year. Wine buyers can come home with a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino and pop it open that night, satisfying their desire for Sangiovese Grosso while they proudly eye their awaiting Brunellos.

As I’ve stressed, these wines can be expensive. But when compared with how exceptional they are, it’s practically a bargain — especially for wine drinkers who want a wine that is like no other. Napa Cabernets and Bordeaux are reaching near-stratospheric prices.

For a fraction of the cost of some so-called cult wines, you can own a truly honest expression of a unique and beautiful landscape. It’s no contest, really. No other wines have ever brought tears to my eyes.

Recommended Wines

Conterno Fantino “Sori Ginestra” Barolo

2004, $122.99

Poderi Luigi Einaudi “Costa Grimaldi”

Barolo 2004, $101.99

Poderi Colla Dardi Le Rose Bussia Barolo

2004, $76.99

Uccelliera Brunello di Montalcino 2003,

$81.99

Le Potazzine Gorelli Brunello di

Montalcino 2003, $88.99

Fuligni Brunello di Montalcino 2003,

$91.99

Conti Costanti Rosso di Montalcino 2006,

$48.99

Lisini Rosso di Montalcino 2006, $49.99

Poggio Antico Rosso di Montalcino 2006,

$59.99